prior probability

The Steinitz Memorial Chess Tournament is this weekend! As an aside, one of the best things about Instagram are the various chess accounts, like the one below:

On Friday, May 15, at 2:30 PM Eastern (11:30 AM Pacific), Professor Ilya Somin and yours truly will be debating the following question: “Do Government Actions in Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic Create Compensable Takings?” This virtual panel is open to the public–just pick up a phone and dial 888-752-3232 to listen in. (Sorry, we won’t be using Zoom, but Ilya and I have agreed to field questions from the audience.) Via the Federalist Society, more details are available here.

Source: The Federalist Society

Updated (May 17): I have already shared (in my previous two posts) my summer syllabus as well as the homepage of my new business law course–both the desktop and Canvas app versions. Next, I shall delve into the details of my course modules, beginning with Module 1 (“Introduction to the Course”). For your reference, screenshots of the desktop and Canvas app versions of Module 1 are pictured below the fold. In summary, since the Summer A session at my university has six weeks, I decided to divide my course into six modules (one per week). The first module has three parts: (1) Syllabus, Academic Activity, and Theme Song, (2) Videos, (3) and Tiger King Stuff. Here, I shall summarize the contents of each part and explain the logic of my design choices:

1. Syllabus, Academic Activity, and Theme Song. The first few items students will see when they now open Module 1 are the syllabus, an academic activity, a theme song as well as some introductory videos. Links to the Syllabus, the Academic Activity, and the Videos are also prominently displayed on the homepage. The theme song and the section on “Tiger King Stuff” are little surprises or rewards for those students who actually bother to go into Module 1. I include a theme song (“Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses, one of my favorite rock songs from when I was in college) in order to stoke everyone’s “animal spirits” and keep up morale. (Also, I have been teaching at the university level for 20 years, and as two generations of students can attest to, I have always liked to begin my lectures with some music.)
2. Videos. Because this is an online course, I created my own YouTube channel (it’s called “Tiger Law Prof”) in order to record and upload short videos for each module of the course. By posting these videos on YouTube, I can also keep track of how many students are actually watching my videos. I recorded my first set of videos in my home office, using my bookcase as a background. Alas, I will be the first to say that my videos are pretty boring, for I am still learning how to edit videos and sex them up with images and graphics. In the meantime, I will use other techniques to make my videos more engaging and entertaining, perhaps by filming some of them outdoors and in other unexpected locations.
3. Tiger King Stuff. Because I am using the docuseries “Tiger King” to explore the legal and ethical environments of business, I devoted the third and last subsection of Module 1 to all things Tiger King, including a YouTube video (the official preview of the series), a beautifully-written magazine article (a critical review of Tiger King that was published in The New Yorker), as well as some Wikipedia entries, one for Joe Exotic’s “Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park” and another for Carole Baskin’s “Big Cat Rescue.”

Continue reading →

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I will be teaching an upper-level survey course on “The Legal & Ethical Environment of Business” during the Summer A session (May 11 to June 19, I believe) at my home institution. Because all Summer A courses at my university are going to be online this year (due to the pandemic), I decided to start from scratch and completely revamp my business law course to make it as relevant, timely, and engaging as possible. Specifically, during one of my bouts of insomnia, I decided to use the hit Netflix docuseries “Tiger King” to explore the legal and ethical environments of business with my undergraduate students.

If you are a fellow instructor and would like to look under the hood, so to speak, and see what my new course looks like, check out the two sets of screenshots that are below the fold. If you are a student and are just curious about the method behind my madness, also feel free to read on. The first two screenshots capture the desktop version of my course homepage (the first thing that enrolled students will see if they open the course on the Canvas platform on a laptop or desktop computer), while the second pair of screenshots show what my homepage looks like on the Canvas app.

In brief, the top of the homepage showcases a colorful collage of images relating to “Tiger King”–the idea here is to grab my students’ attention from the get-go with a beautiful visualization of the two main protagonists of the hit series, Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic. The rest of the homepage contains some announcements. Among other things, I welcome students to the course and provide them a link to a required academic activity. I also provide students a link to the syllabus (see my previous post to see what my syllabus looks like) and then include a few short introductory videos to personalize this online course as much as possible.

In addition to the homepage, which I will update weekly, I have also created six separate modules for this course (one module per week). Each module will cover a different area of law and will contain a theme song, a set of video lectures, and all of my assigned reading materials (cases, legislation, book chapters, and law review articles) for that week, so students won’t have to spend money on an expensive textbook. (I will delve into the details of Module 1, which is titled “Week 1: Introduction to the Course,” in my next blog post and then describe the contents of my remaining five modules in future posts.) Continue reading →

My favorite team growing up was the Miami Dolphins … until they fired Don Shula in 1995, a decision that will live in infamy. In honor of the legendary Don Shula, the greatest coach in North American football history, the Miami Dolphins should bring back their old uniforms. Rest in peace 🐬 🏈 …

As a public service, below is a chronological and thematic compilation of my myriad blog posts relating to “the takings clause in the coronavirus age”:

Black-letter takings law:

1. Property rights and the pandemic (April 21, 2020)
2. Kelo and the coronavirus (April 27, 2020)
3. Justice Holmes to the rescue (May 6, 2020)
4. Kelo and the coronavirus, part 2 (May 6, 2020)
5. Temporary takings (May 7, 2020).

Public policy and moral theory:

1. My natural rights approach to coronavirus lockdowns (March 24, 2020)
2. A takings model of the economic shutdown (March 25, 2020)
3. How much? (March 26, 2020)
4. Who pays? (March 27, 2020
5. A property-rights approach to the pandemic (April 2, 2020)

Miscellany:

1. Somin v. Guerra-Pujol, Round 1 (March 29, 2020)
2. Somin v. Guerra-Pujol, round 2 (March 30, 2020)
3. Somin v. Guerra-Pujol, round 3 (March 30, 2020)
4. Handouts versus property rights, featuring a funny remix of the song “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion (April 22, 2020)
5. Free Shelley Luther! (May 7, 2020)

Any questions?

I featured a beautiful example of musical fan art in my previous post, and I have also explored the law and economics of literary fan art in one of my previous papers. Here, I would like to feature some “political fan art.” This poster of Dr Anthony Fauci (the only member of the president’s task force who I trust, by the way) is modelled after the famous 2008 “Hope” campaign poster featuring then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Let’s just hope Dr Fauci doesn’t let us down the way Trump has!

I have written about “literary fan art” (check out my NYU law review article here), arguing that such forms of fan art are fair uses, but what about musical fan art (like the Japanese version of the song “Say So,” which I can’t get out of my head!)? Music industry suits (or as my friend and colleague Brian Frye would call them, “landlords”) would like us to believe that sampling and other unauthorized performances of copyrighted songs is illegal under copyright law, but the landlords/suits are wrong. As my friend and colleague Mike Schuster has shown, such practices expand the market for the original song. More details about the Japanese version of the song “Say So”–and Doja Cat’s priceless reaction when she heard it for the first time–are available here.